When I saw the trailers for yesterday’s episode of Primeval I wondered whether they were going to give any explanation of how the giant arthropods could survive in our atmosphere, and pleasantly they did - oxygen rich air leaking through the rift anomaly from the Carboniferous.

Then they go and spoil it by having the good looking bloke use a blowtorch right in front of the rift anomaly with no side effects what so ever. If the oxygen levels were high enough to affect the soldiers then wouldn’t any flames also be affected?

Oh, and they doubled the size of Arthropleura. There could be a larger species that simply hasn’t been found in the fossil record yet…

Science aside, it’s fun tea time nonsense, but the geek is very annoying and only Douglas Henshaw shows any signs of actually being able to act.

One last thing. We’ve all been conned. On the ITV web site for the series there’s a list of creatures. Have a look and see if you spot whats missing:

• Coelurosauravus
• Scutosaurus
• Gorgonopsid
• Giant Spiders
• Arthropleura
• Mosasaur
• Hesperonis
• Dodo
• Parasite
• Pteranodon
• Agnurognathus
• Predator

Not one of those is a dinosaur. No dinosaurs. Weren’t we promised dinosaurs? But all we get is arthropods, synapsids, and birds (I know birds are dinosaurs). Give us some proper dinos!

Very True Mood: irritated

Just watched the first episode of Primeval. Hmm, The X-Files (the lead character even has a family member who vanished in mysterious circumstances) meets Jurassic Park (academics versus “dinosaurs”).

Fairly predictable stuff all round. The creatures are presented in a now-familar fashion - on the technical side this is from many of the same people as Walking with… and Prehistoric Park - and it doesn’t look like the plot is going to find a cliché it doesn’t like.

Oh well, there’s nothing else on the telly on a Saturday evening for the next few weeks. Let’s see, six episodes takes us to March 17th and the 24th is the rumoured start date for Doctor Who. Not taking any chances with the ratings on this one are we ITV?

The reason I don’t post so much at the moment is partly that my brain is a bit frazzled at the moment and partly that when I write a long post (like version one of this one) it get’s eaten by the computer-interweb-monster.

Anyway, here’s some of what I wanted to tell you all.

Wordie “Like Flickr, but without the photos.” Silly but funny.

A Preacher TV series? OMG. How fucking cool would that be if they did it right?

Speaking of TV (oh I’m smooth I am). Is Robin Hood the gayest programme on the box at the moment? Can you point at any one of the regular characters and say “Yes, they’re 100% heterosexual”? Let’s look at them all:

• Robin - ran off to the Holy Land rather than marry Marion; homo-erotic wrestling match with Guy last week.
• Much - follows Robin around all the time making puppy dog eyes
• John - left his wife to live in the forest with a bunch of men
• Alan - did you see him trying on the women’s jewellery a couple of episodes back?
• Will - claims to love Djaq, who…
• Djaq - man’s name, men’s clothes, short hair
• Marion - creeps out of the house at night disguised as a man
• Guy - all that tight black leather and generally being the Sheriff’s bitch
• The Sheriff - has a gimp called Guy; seemed equally interested in the nun and the serving boy

So much denial. They must have cut down Sherwood Forest to make all those closets. Still good to see this getting airtime at 7pm on BBC1. And the only complaints are about the historical accuracy. That’s progress for you.

Built my first AJAX powered web thingy. It’s very Web 2.0 - even got popup message box things with semi-opaque backgrounds.

Back on Web 1.33333 I’ve updated the Dinosaurs in Miniature web pages. Added 10mm and 6mm listings and updated the existing lists.

Oh, and that fuckwit who thinks MI5 are stalking him through the telly has spammed radw, presumably thanks to some cross posted threads from a uk. group. Still it makes a change from the normal moronic trolling. Why do I still read? Must be some form of masochism.

Going to see Mitchell and Webb tomorrow. In Cryodon, but it’s okay - I’ve had my innoculations. That’s the start of a long weekend and we have big plans. Take in a film or two, do the Christmas shopping, visit the British Museum, giroscope’s birthday curry, clean the flat from top to bottom. Come Tuesday I’ll be glad to be back at work.

This is a spoiler…

A Pterodactyl fighting a Cyberbabe? Would the Torchwood writers kindly please warn me in future if they plan to eavesdrop on my fantasies?

Very True Mood: impressed

In case anyone has missed the news, Kent “Dr Dino” Hovind has been found guilty of tax evasion and is in prison awaiting sentencing. This is very good news.

I do feel sorry for all his victims who have given him thousands of dollars over the years and swallowed his line in creationist claptrap. What’s worse some of them won’t even now realise that he was a conman, a crook and a liar and will see his conviction as part of the liberal-atheist conspiracy.

Closer to home, for the benefit of everyone who hasn’t already asked, yes I did get the dinosaur stickers in yersterday’s Guardian.

New from Reaper, a mean look Phorusrhacid.

Obviously, I want. But do I need another?

Very True Mood: content

Via TMP, Magister Militum have launched a new range of dinosaurs in 10mm (1/160 scale).

Meanwhile back in 28mm, I discovered a while back, but forgot to blog it, that Das Schwarze Auge - The Dark Eye range available via Ral Partha Europe, contains a handful of prehistoric creatures.

A dancing T. rex, just don’t paint him purple…

Very True Mood: chipper

Prehistoric Park on ITV is more than just a bit silly. Remember how Walking with Dinosaurs presented itself as a nature documentary that woulda, coulda, shoulda been made if only we had a time machine? But the only human intrusion into the CGI was Kenneth Branagh’s voice over. Then as the franchise continued Nigel Marven took over from Ken and started appearing alongside the dinosaurs.

Well, Nigel and the CGI team have jumped channels and, quelle surprise, the human and prehistoric worlds have intermingled completely. The mission is the bring prehistoric creatures back to a special safari park. Haven’t these guys watched Jurassic Park? (The audience have, it was on immediately beforehand.) Or for handy tips, read How to Keep Dinosaurs (a very good book).

This week’s opener took them back to the days before the KT boundary meteor impact event. And much was made of the race against time to rescue specimans before the big rock hit. Um, you have a time machine, you can go back months or years before impact, so why pick mere days?

The one up side of this approach is that give a good idea of the scale of the beasts when you see them alongside humans, jeeps, etc. Other than that it’s just pretty CGI dinos and mindless “bring ‘em back alive” boys own adventures.

Very True Mood: cheerful

Amazon Miniatures have joined my favourite bandwagon and started a range of Prehistoric Animals.

Three items are out now with at least five more coming soon.

• ANP01 Raptor (2) 3.25
• ANP02 Diatryma Giganticus (2) £3.00
• ANP03 Raptor and dinosaur eggs £2.50
• ANP04 Yangchanosaurus £7.50
• ANP05 Feathered Raptor (2) £3.25
• ANP06 Leaping Smilodon (Sabre tooth lion) £2.25
• ANP07 Short-faced bear standing £2.25
• ANP21 Neanderthal Warrior with bone club and spear

The plain raptors look like they would fit in well with the Jeff Valent or Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals versions, and it’s very good to see someone tackling feathered raptors in this scale at last.

Amazon, being the kind of people who “think outside the box” (sorry, really, really sorry) are also stocking bags of plastic toy dinos for wargamers too embarrassed to step foot inside Early Learning Centres.

Anyway, I know where one of my first stops at this year’s Salute will be.

Very True Mood: cheerful

Four posts in one day and it’s only two o’clock - can you tell that I don’t have a lot to do at work today? Mostly because I don’t really dare touch anything until the java boys (like java man but less hairy) have stopped beating the database with large sticks.

Anyway, want to see one of my favourite web sites? Dino Directory at the NHM is a very neat little site. A database of dinosaurs with a nice web front end that allows users to search and sort the data by a wide range of criteria - the large graphics lead novice users into a simple search by body shape function, whilst more advanced functions such as grouping by geographic and chronological proximity are readily available for more adventurous users. And then the results link through to the NHM’s picture library which is another hidden gem in itself.

It’s a shame that the front end coding isn’t as nice as the information architecture. Looking at the code it seems that the header and footer were created by someone who knows what they’re doing - CSS layout, accessible, etc. Whilst the actual Dino Directory code in the middle is tables based and full of errors. Shame.

There’s also an RSS feed to keep user up to date with the latest dinos to be added. This week saw the addition of the very cute sounding Wannanosaurus. Oddly, this seems to be the only RSS feed on the whole NHM site.

Anyway, here’s a lovely site based on a great idea and well implemented (just needs a little work to make it standards compliant and accessible), but… it’s very Web 1.0 isn’t it? How could one jazz this up to make it Web 2.0? Define a dinosaur microformat and provide an API to allow dino data to be reused on other sites? Allow users to drag and drop dinosaurs into a personal folder and then play top trumps with other users? Or, if it ain’t broken, don’t try to make it buzzword compliant?

Very True Mood: contemplative